


The Way You Are

by toyhto



Series: The Way You Are [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Dark-ish, M/M, Post-First War with Voldemort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-21
Updated: 2018-09-21
Packaged: 2019-07-15 01:36:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,936
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16052738
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/toyhto/pseuds/toyhto
Summary: You don't have to be alright.





	The Way You Are

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted to write something about Remus in November 1981 and upcoming months and years. Trigger warning for self-harm and (vague) suicidal thoughts. Also, there's some content that's a bit dub/con-ish, though not involving actual another person.

The rain falls on the tin roof.  
  
_Tap tap tap.  
  
Tap tap tap.  
  
_ He should get up and wash his face. Or drink something. Water. He should drink water. He should brush his teeth and eat something and then perhaps go to bed. It’d be better to lie on the bed than on the floor. He’s not even drunk anymore, not drunk enough to forget about the dull ache behind his left shoulder blade. And in his head. And in all over. Someone’s sitting on his chest. _Something_. He’s been sad before, of course. But it was nothing like this. He closes his eyes.  
  
_Tap tap tap._  
  
He should get up. He should go to a store. A muggle store, so he wouldn’t see people who’re celebrating. He should buy something to drink. There’s nothing in the flat, nothing to get drunk with. He drank everything last night, he even finished the last bottle of whiskey Sirius had -  
  
_Tap tap tap._  
  
The weight on his chest grows heavier.  
  
He opens his eyes even though the light stirs a dull ache in behind his eyes.  
  
And this is only the first day.  
  
  
**  
  
  
It’s September in 1985. Almost four years. He can hear the rain falling against the windows. It’s quiet inside of his head. At least for now.  
  
The man in his bed is breathing in ragged breaths, the rhythm of them breaking every time he pushes back in. He doesn’t remember the man’s name. It was Jack something. Or maybe John. No, he’d remember if it was John, it’s his own middle name too. Or, he’d probably remember. They met in a bar. In the men’s room. Or perhaps outside. He was smoking and the man stopped to stare at him, to stare at the scars, probably, but he didn’t pull his gaze away. He was too drunk for that. He sometimes is. He gets lost inside his own head and can’t deal with people.  
  
He likes Jack, or John. Jack or John has been quiet all the way through, expect of course breathing. He slips his fingers through Jack’s hair but it’s the wrong kind so he pulls them back and settles onto the back of man’s neck. The skin there is warm. Damp with sweat. Feels like anyone’s skin.  
  
He closes his eyes.  
  
The rain is getting lighter now.  
  
_Tap tap tap._  
  
Fuck.  
  
Fuck fuck fuck.  
  
He shouldn’t think about it but it’s the only way he can come.  
  
The way the man breathes out. It could be anyone.  
  
He pushes back in, and pushes back in.  
  
Later, Jack or John looks at him. “You were thinking about someone else.”  
  
“What?” He lights a cigarette. He’s sitting on the edge of the bed, watching the rain falling on the window. He should get the condom off and then take a shower. He should do a lot of things.  
  
“When you fucked me.”  
  
“No.”  
  
“I don’t mind. I just… did you love him?”  
  
He shakes his head. It’s still hours until morning, hours until he has to wake up and go to work. Another day. And it’s been almost four years.  
  
“You just seem sad, so I thought…”  
  
“Yeah,” he says and bits his lip, but the man doesn’t seem surprised. It doesn’t feel like love, though. Most days, it feels a lot like hate.  
  
  
**  
  
  
It’s been five or six days, when he gets a Howler from Molly Weasley. He lets the owl in because it’s raining and the bird looks so sad he can’t bear it. Molly’s voice is awfully loud even though he realises that Molly’s actually talking quietly, nicely, gently. Pretty much like you’d talk to a frightened kid. _Remus_ , she is saying _, Remus, I can’t even imagine how you must feel right now. I just wanted to let you know, we wanted to let you know, that you can come visit us anytime you want. Anytime at all. Just come here. And you don’t have to… you don’t need to be alright. Just come the way you are.  
  
_ He goes in the afternoon. He shouldn’t. But he’s run out of food and alcohol again and he can’t _think._ He Apparates to Molly and Arthur’s porch and then sits there until a little boy who must be Charlie Weasley sees him through the window and they all rush to let him in. Molly tells the kids to go to their rooms and Remus almost laughs, because yeah, kids shouldn’t see him, not like this. No one should see him. He should’ve died, too.  
  
Molly makes him take a bath and goes to make tea, or so she says. He leans back in the warm water, closes his eyes and listens to Molly’s steps going downstairs. There’s just no way he can live like this. He doesn’t know how to. It’s been, what, six days, and already he can’t take it anymore. And there’re going to be more days. Weeks. Months. Years. Fucking rest of his life. And every morning he’s going to wake up and remember that James and Lily and Peter are gone and Sirius -  
  
There’s a wet sound when the flat of his palm meets the side of his face.  
  
It stings for a few seconds.  
  
He slaps again, and breathes, and breathes, and seconds go by easier.  
  
Later, he drinks tea with Molly and Arthur. They look at him as if they’re calculating how deep he’s already in. He smiles at them and it comes surprisingly easy. But it’s just muscles moving. He hears himself saying that he’s going to be fine. Everything’s going to be fine. He just needs a bit time. And Molly and Arthur nod, relieved, and Remus drinks his tea and smiles until it’s over and he Apparates back to his flat that’s empty. He sits down on the floor and leans his head against the wall.  
  
  
**  
  
  
Two years. It’s been two years now. He goes to the pub for the first time in weeks, probably the first time since he moved to Edinburgh. He’s got a part-time job here, helping a witch who’s doing research on the effects of practising dark magic on young age. Sometimes she looks at him as if she’s trying to figure out how to fix him. But otherwise it’s alright. He kind of likes the job. And he likes Edinburgh. It reminds him of nothing.  
  
But then he goes to the pub because it’s the first of November and he can’t face the night sober and alone, and after half an hour or so a man comes in with his friends, a man with black hair in a messy bun and worn leather jacket and an obnoxious tilt in his head.  
  
He stares at the man and only realises it when the man looks back. He takes the rest of his whiskey in one sip. The man has stood up and is walking to him. The way he walks… His face isn’t familiar, thank God, but the way he walks…  
  
“You’re new,” the man says and glances at him.  
  
He’s not been with anyone in two years. Of course he hasn’t. He’s never going to be with anyone again, never, because he’s rotten inside and he never should’ve loved anyone or, what’s worse, assume they could love him back, and for two years now he’s been telling himself just that on repeat. _No one could love you. No one could love you. You can’t be loved._  
  
They go to the men’s room and there the man pushes him to an empty stall and kisses him on the mouth, trying to open his zipper. But then they hear someone coming in. The man places his palm on Remus’ mouth and they wait in the stall, and fuck, _fuck_ it’s good, the palm on his face, someone’s touching him, someone’s holding him quiet, and it’s like he’s been starving for this, just this. He realises the men’s room is empty only when the man is trying to push his jeans down, but then the door opens again and someone comes in and they wait, and after that they get out of the stall and out of the pub and to the man’s place.  
  
It’s easy like this. He keeps his face pushed against the pillow. The man has fingers on his neck, holding him down, holding him in place when he’s slowly being coaxed open with slick careful fingers.  
  
“Have you done this before?” It’s said in a rushed voice. Confused. Almost worried.  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
“It’s just that you seem… it’s been a while, hasn’t it?”  
  
_Just go on_ , he thinks. _Go on. Go on._  
  
He almost cries when the man strokes his hair afterwards. He sits up on the bed and flinches, and the man pulls his hand back and asks if he’s okay. He says that he is. The man says something about not having wanted to push it, and he says it’s fine. He’s fine. He just needs to go home. He has work tomorrow. It’s fine.  
  
In the morning, he’s not completely sober, there’s an empty bottle of wine in the bed, he is sore in a way he had forgotten about, and he can still feel the fingers on his neck, holding him down.  
  
Sirius’ fingers.  
  
  
**  
  
  
It’s been almost two weeks when he has the first dream. They’re in the flat, he and Sirius. He’s making tea in the kitchen, Sirius is sitting on the sofa. They aren’t even talking. But he could walk to Sirius. He knows he could walk to Sirius and sit down and Sirius would probably say something stupid and slightly awkward and then put a hand on his knee.  
  
He wakes up, gets out of the bed, walks through the living room, and it’s empty, there’s no one there. He goes to the bathroom. His heartbeat is sharp against his ribs. He’s been drinking too much and eating too little and everything he vomits tastes like death. Later, he drinks a glass of water and wipes off what’s stuck on his chin and sits down on the sofa. He shouldn’t cry. He shouldn’t.  
  
  
**  
  
  
He finds the book by accident. It’s barely relevant to the study and he realises it in ten minutes, but he can’t stop reading. Helen has gone out, the gentle rain hits the windows with a steady rhythm and outside it’s a cold, quiet Monday morning late in the winter in Edinburgh. It’s 1984, it’s been more than two years, and when he turns another page, and another page, he can’t believe he’s not heard of this, not even thought about this. Because surely it’s possible. By magic. It must be possible, because everything is possible, it’s just that there’re a lot of things you aren’t supposed to do even if you can. You shouldn’t go back in time. You shouldn’t split your soul. And you shouldn’t conjure an image of someone you loved and lost.  
  
He’s thought about going back in time, of course. He’s thought about fixing everything or, because that’s impossible, at least seeing Sirius again. He could see Sirius again. That should be enough. That must be enough. There’s no way he could talk to Sirius, or _touch_ Sirius, but he could see Sirius and him in their living room back in when he still thought Sirius loved him.  
  
He’s not done it only partly because he’s quite sure it’d be the end of him.  
  
But this, this is too alluring. He could talk to Sirius. He could touch Sirius if he did the spell well enough.  
  
It takes him seven weeks. The spell is ancient and he needs to find more books because everyone lacks information. And every book has different instructions. But there’s enough similarities that he can try. It’s like a path written on a map torn into pieces but if he follows it, surely he’ll end up somewhere.  
  
After three weeks, Helen asks him if he’s got trouble sleeping. He says no. By that point, three hours of sleep at night is good. Four hours is great.  
  
Half an hour is normal.  
  
It’s because of the memories, he thinks. He has to collect his memories for the spell, he has to remember everything about Sirius, everything he’s spent last two and a half years trying not to remember. He buys glass jars and fills them with things he can’t bear to remember because most of them are _good_ , and still there’re moments when he can’t believe that Sirius didn’t love him after all, because if Sirius didn’t, why the hell did he look at Remus like that, or talk to Remus like that, or _touch_ Remus like that. Why the fucking hell? And then he drinks and stays awake and looks at the glass jars on the bookshelf and thinks about breaking them all. But he doesn’t.  
  
After seven weeks, he’s ready.  
  
  
**  
  
  
“What’re those? You collect them?”  
  
He glances at the way the man is pointing. Fuck. “No. Yeah.”  
  
“You’re odd,” says the man and climbs out of his bed. He reaches for his wand but stops in time. The man is a muggle, all of them are, but the thought of him touching any of the jars -  
  
“Come back.”  
  
“They’re actually pretty –“  
  
“ _Don’t touch them._ ”  
  
The man turns to him, frowning. He swallows and tries to smile.  
  
“Fingerprints,” he says.  
  
“Oh,” the man says. “Okay. So, did you want to…”  
  
Remus shakes his head. “I mean, I have to go to work in the morning. And I really, you know, I can’t sleep if there’s someone in the bed.”  
  
“Yeah. Okay. So, call me if you want to…”  
  
He promises to call. When the man is gone, he vanishes the phone number written behind a receipt in an unsteady handwriting. Then he stops in front of the bookshelf and looks at the jars. He’s been ready for almost two months now. It’s summer 1984.  
  
He sits in the bath for a long time, slowly washing off what’s dried on the inside of his thighs. He kind of liked this man. Maybe if he wasn’t like this, maybe if he was someone else, they could see each other again. Maybe they would kiss this time. The man had wanted to. But Remus’ head had already been hazy with alcohol and the haste to feel nothing, or nothing _besides_ , and the man had kept saying that there was no rush but had followed him anyway when he had kicked his jeans and his pants off and knelt on the bed, leaning his elbows against the mattress, leaning his face against the pillow, eyes closed.  
  
When he goes back to the other room, it looks like the sky behind the line of the rooftops is getting lighter. Fuck. He makes tea and sits on the bed that smells of sex and sweat, looking at the glass jars.  
  
  
**  
  
  
It’s the first of January in 1991.  
  
It’s going to be fucking ten years.  
  
He’s come this far.  
  
There’s frost in the window. Diagon Alley looks asleep even though it’s almost ten o’clock in the morning.  
  
“Remus?”  
  
He closes his eyes for a second. He didn’t drink that much last night but his head hurts like hell anyway. But then again, he’s 30 years old. Sometimes he forgets. And it must be partly because Sirius in his memories is still 21.  
  
“Remus, do you want tea?”  
  
“Yeah,” he says over his shoulder. “Please.”  
  
“You drunk a lot last night.”  
  
“No, I didn’t.”  
  
“And you kept looking at me as if I was someone else.”  
  
“No, I… sorry.”  
  
“I’m just worried.”  
  
He tries not to think about Sirius.  
  
Sometimes it’s almost like he’s run out of hate. He never was able to hate Sirius the way he ought to have and now it seems that he’s gotten a bit tired of hating himself, too. Sometimes he thinks that it must’ve been complicated. It must’ve been difficult for Sirius as well. There was a war. People go mad in war. Maybe it wasn’t that Sirius never loved him, and if Sirius actually never loved him, maybe it’s not completely because of him.  
  
“Remus,” Annie says, sits down on the sofa beside him and gives him a cup of tea, “stop looking so sad.”  
  
“Sorry.”  
  
“You have a first version yet? Of the article? I could read it today. I don’t have anything else going on.”  
  
“No.” He’s been writing about the education of non-human intelligent magical creatures in France.  
  
“Need help with it?”  
  
“Not really. But you could go out if you like. Go see someone.”  
  
“Or,” Annie says slowly, “I could stay here.”  
  
“I’m not going to do anything stupid.”  
  
“I know you aren’t.”  
  
“You don’t have to watch over me.”  
  
Annie sighs. “Okay. Maybe I’ll ask Violet and Eva what they’re up to.”  
  
Half an hour later, Annie Disapparates from the hallway and the flat goes quiet. They have two bedrooms and a tiny living room and a tinier kitchen. Annie is even messier than Remus. He liked that from the beginning. He liked that there was someone else’s stuff lying all around and he couldn’t for a second forget that it wasn’t 1981 anymore.  
  
They fucked once. It was weird. He kept losing focus, but he was drunk and so lonely and wanted to have hands on his skin, warm human hands holding him. Afterwards, he fell asleep condom still on and woke up to Annie’s fingers slowly stroking his hair. He took the condom off, went to the bathroom and when he came back, he didn’t tell Annie to go to her own bed. Annie is nothing like Sirius. He would never fall in love with Annie. Annie would never break his heart.  
  
When Annie comes home, it’s almost evening. There’s snow slowly covering the rooftops. Remus has drunk a bit and watched a movie and cried but only like a minute. Annie sits down next to him on the sofa and curls against his side, and he wraps his arm around her. She smells of flowers. Like a woman. Nothing like Sirius.  
  
  
**  
  
  
He tries the spell first in August 1984. He’s drunk and high and can’t get it right.  
  
The second time, it works.  
  
He breaks it down after three seconds and goes to the bathroom to throw out.  
  
Next time, he has all the curtains pulled close. It’s the middle of the night. He’s showered. He’s combed his hair. He’s drunk enough to calm himself down but not enough to lose the grip. He’s wearing his best shirt.  
  
He can see through Sirius. But the books say that the conjuration becomes stronger if you talk to it, if you touch it, if you treat it as if it’s real.  
  
“Hi,” he says.  
  
Sirius blinks and turns to him. This is Sirius in early 1981, clearly, with an odd haircut. This is the Sirius he misses the most. “What the fuck?”  
  
  
**  
  
  
Sirius has just come home. It’s February 1981. There’s dried blood on Sirius’ hair. Remus has only been back to London for half a day, he hasn’t seen Sirius in three weeks, it’s two days after full moon and all in him is still aching, his wounds aren’t healing properly because he couldn’t get out of there immediately, no, because he was somewhere in northern Wales with Greyback’s pack. He sits on the sofa, watching as Sirius throws the leather jacket onto the floor and walks straight to the kitchen, pours himself whiskey and drinks it down. Then Sirius turns to him. “You’re okay.”  
  
He nods. “The blood on your –“  
  
“It’s not mine,” Sirius says and touches his hair. “I caught a stunning hex, though. On my arm. It’s still a bit limb. But I’m fine. Did you see him?”  
  
He nods.  
  
“Fuck. So, you were with them. At full moon.”  
  
“I can’t tell you –“  
  
“Yeah,” Sirius shakes his head, “I know. Fucking hell. I know you can’t tell me, but just…”  
  
“I’m alright, Sirius.”  
  
“Did you get your wounds fixed?”  
  
It takes him a second too long to nod.  
  
“Fuck, Remus. You should’ve –“  
  
“I did. When I came back here.”  
  
“You did it _yourself?_ You’re crap at that.”  
  
“I’m not _crap_ , I’m just not as good as you.”  
  
“Take your shirt off,” Sirius says, pours himself more whiskey and drinks it down. “And your jeans.”  
  
He should say no. But Sirius kneels down onto the floor in front of him and he can’t fucking _speak_ , so he takes off his shirt and then opens his zipper, pushes the jeans down to his ankles and kicks them off, and Sirius starts healing his wounds one by one. It hurts. Sirius has to rip them open at first, but he has one palm on Remus’ thigh, holding him still, and Remus fixes his thoughts on that. When Sirius reaches forward to heal a wound on his stomach, he closes his eyes.  
  
“Remus,” Sirius says, his hand suddenly very still on Remus’ stomach.  
  
_Fuck._  
  
“It’s not –,” he says but stops. Of course it’s because of Sirius.  
  
“What?” Sirius’ thumb is tracing small circles on Remus’ stomach.  
  
“Nothing. I’m –“  
  
“Don’t fucking say you’re sorry,” Sirius says, his gaze reaching Remus’ eyes and then dropping back to his waist, his pants, the wet patch on the fabric. He should turn off the lights at least. He should get off the sofa and to the bathroom and lock himself there. He should say that it’s not about Sirius, it’s just that he’s been so tired and Sirius’ touch is just so _nice_ -  
  
Sirius runs his thumb on Remus, through the fabric.  
  
Remus flinches.  
  
“Easy,” Sirius says, placing his other hand on Remus’ thigh, fingers stroking him as if to calm him down.  
  
“Sirius –“  
  
“Shut up,” Sirius says, quietly. ”I’m going to fix this for you. Unless you tell me you don’t like me that way.”  
  
Remus breaths in. His heart is growing heavy. He opens his mouth. Of course he likes Sirius, who the hell wouldn’t? He’s always liked Sirius. Sometimes he thinks he loves -  
  
Sirius touches him again.  
  
“Oh,” Sirius stays, running his palm up and down on Remus’ thigh that’s now trembling, “I’m going to take your pants off now.”  
  
“What’re you –“  
  
“Don’t talk,” Sirius says, pushes his fingers under the waistline and pulls Remus’ pants slowly into his ankles and onto the floor. Remus tries to breathe. Sirius looks straight at him, and he’s so hard he’d probably come in fucking ten seconds if he now started wanking. But he can’t. He can’t do anything. Sirius is watching him, _seeing_ him, and he doesn’t remember how to breathe.  
  
Sirius places a firm hand on Remus’ hip, leans closer and takes him into his mouth.  
  
  
**  
  
  
Later, he wanted to hurt Sirius for not trusting him anymore.  
  
He didn’t.  
  
Now he does.  
  
  
**  
  
  
The third time he conjures Sirius from his memories, he keeps talking about the weather until Sirius fades away.  
  
The fourth time, he’s just woken up, and in the dream they were fucking, he had Sirius inside of him and Sirius kept saying _I love you._  
  
He walks to Sirius and hits him on the face.  
  
Sirius falls against the wall and looks at him, his eyes wide, his mouth open, and then wipes a hint of blood from his lower lip with the back of his hand and glances at it. “What the fucking hell, Remus?”  
  
Remus thinks he’s going to pass out.  
  
It can’t be this real.  
  
He hits Sirius again, but this time Sirius gets out of the way and instead grabs the front of Remus’ t-shirt, pushing him off. Sirius’ grip feels real. Sirius feels real. Sirius breathes in heavy breaths and looks at him as if he’s gone mad, but it’s still September in 1984, he’s in his flat in Edinburgh and he hasn’t seen Sirius in almost three years.  
  
“What?” Sirius barks, holding his hand against the side of his face that Remus hit. “Why the fuck did you do that? What did I –“  
  
He pushes Sirius against the door with both hands.  
  
Sirius kicks him in the groin, but not like he means it. “Shit, Remus, stop –“  
  
He grabs Sirius’ face with both hands and kisses Sirius on the mouth.  
  
“Fuck,” Sirius says and pulls his head back to breathe, “ _fuck_ , Remus, are you a fucking –“  
  
He kisses Sirius again and this time Sirius kisses him back.  
  
Oh, God.  
  
He had forgotten it was like this.  
  
Not at first, though, not when they first started kissing. But later. In the summer and in the autumn. He thought Sirius didn’t trust him anymore. He was so _angry,_ and also every time Sirius refused to meet his eyes, it felt like a kick in the stomach. He didn’t know what to say to Sirius, how to ask Sirius to fucking _trust_ him without sounding like he was exactly what Sirius thought he was, or what he thought Sirius thought he was. So, they kissed instead of talking.  
  
Like this.  
  
And fucked. On the kitchen table, on the floor, against the bathroom door, in the bathtub so that the cold edge of it pressed into Remus’ shoulder blades. Rarely on the bed. Always in haste.  
  
Like this.  
  
Only now he knows that he was wrong. Sirius didn’t stop trusting him. Probably Sirius just fucking got tired of kissing him.  
  
He pushes Sirius to the kitchen, grabs Sirius by the hips and turns him, so they’re facing the edge of the kitchen table. They used to do this the other way around. Remus used to be the one lying flat on the table, pushing his pants to his knees at the nights when he couldn’t say anything to Sirius, not a fucking word, but he _had_ to feel Sirius. And Sirius was always oddly gentle even when they weren’t talking, and when it was quite clear that everything was going to hell. He thought it meant that Sirius still loved him.  
  
Sirius used to push his shirt all the way up on his back and leave a trail of wet kisses on his backbone.  
  
He’s not going to do that.  
  
He lays his fingers on the back of Sirius neck and pushes down until Sirius is lying on the kitchen table, his left cheek against it, his hair going out of the bun, his eyelashes flickering. He looks so good. He looks so familiar. He looks so _real._ Remus places his hand on Sirius’ back and pushes the shirt all the way up, and it’s warm, all this skin. He wants to lean down and kiss the scar under Sirius’ left shoulder blade. _A minor accident with an illegal charm,_ Sirius said once when he asked, _I was nine._ They were sitting on the sofa, their feet entangled together, their warm damp skins glued together so that when they shifted, there was this wet sound. Almost like kissing.  
  
_Fuck._  
  
“Remus,” Sirius is saying in a quiet voice, “what’re you doing, what’s wrong, did something happen? Can’t you just kiss me?”  
  
_No_ , Remus thinks and tries to open Sirius’ zipper. He’s not going to kiss Sirius. He’s going to push Sirius’ jeans to his ankles and... and…  
  
Only this isn’t Sirius.  
  
He pushes his fingers into Sirius’ hair and watches as it goes transparent. His fingers start slipping, not through Sirius’ hair but through his skull.  
  
“Sirius –“  
  
“Yeah?” Sirius says, but his voice is distant now.  
  
“I still love you. But you aren’t here.”  
  
“You fucking idiot,” Sirius says in a gentle voice, “of course I’m here.”  
  
And then he’s gone.  
  
The glass jars on the bookshelf shine with silvery light for a few more second.  
  
Remus pushes himself away from the kitchen table. He’s hard and also he wants to cry. He goes to the bathroom, washes his face, then pushes his jeans and his pants down and takes himself in hand. His knees are starting to tremble. _God_ he looks awful. He looks like he’s seen a ghost. He looks like he almost fucked a ghost, against the kitchen table, without asking, because who the hell asks _a ghost._  
  
But he’s still real.  
  
He’s pretty sure he’s still real.  
  
He bites back the bitter taste in his mouth. Wanking doesn’t feel good anymore, not really, but he comes anyway. For a few seconds, his mind is almost quiet. Then he realises his face is wet and tastes like salt.  
  
  
**  
  
  
He’s been in London for three weeks when he finds the cardboard box where he put the glass jars in 1984. He takes one out of the box. It looks like nothing. It looks like there’s only air in there, not memories of him and Sirius kissing and talking and laughing and fucking and slowly losing it all until the only thing they know how to do is fuck.  
  
He hasn’t seen Sirius in almost eight years.  
  
The job in London is quite nice, though. He writes articles for papers no one reads. The money is crap but he gets to write about things that actually matter, at least sometimes.  
  
Eight fucking years.  
  
But he’s not going to think about that. His life is so much better now than when he put those glass jars away after he almost fucked Sirius on the kitchen table in his tiny flat in Edinburgh. Back then, he couldn’t think about anything else for _days._ He wanted to cry and vomit and also he wanted to lock the doors and wank and come. He wanted to conjure the image of Sirius again and make Sirius fuck him so that he could stop thinking. And he wanted to conjure the image of Sirius and kiss him and say that he was sorry.  
  
He’s sorry.  
  
Yesterday, he put a picture on a window sill. His flatmate, Annie, who has eyeglasses and a sharp stare and who reads more than him, asked him who they were. _My friends_ , he said. _They died in the war._  
  
He’s going to put the glass jars back to the box, though. He’s going to put the box where he can’t find it. But later that night, when Annie goes out to see some friends and the flat is all quiet, he sits on the sofa and sees the box in the corner.  
  
He’s forgotten what Sirius’ voice sounds like. He’s going to forget everything.  
  
But everything is in the jars.  
  
He doesn’t remember the spell, either, and it’s not easy to find the books. It takes him almost two hours and with every sound from the corridor he thinks Annie has come home, and then he’s going to have to stop, and he’s not going to have the guts to go on with this later, because what kind of a reckless idiot does this, anyway? But Annie doesn’t come back, and he keeps going through the cardboard boxes until he finds the right books.  
  
It takes four tries before he can get the spell right.  
  
Oh, fucking hell.  
  
“Hi,” Sirius says. He looks like a ghost. He looks like Remus could put his hand straight through him. He probably could.  
  
He goes to the kitchen, fills a glass with whiskey and drinks some of it.  
  
“Hi.”  
  
“Where’re we?”  
  
“I’m in London. In Diagon Alley.”  
  
“But this isn’t –,” Sirius says, looking around.  
  
“No. It’s not our flat. I moved out. This is… I’m living with someone.”  
  
Something freezes in Sirius’ eyes.  
  
“No, not living _with…_ sorry. I mean, she’s my flatmate.”  
  
The corner of Sirius’ mouth quirks. _Fuck._ Remus had forgotten about that, too. “ _She?_ Well, then I shouldn’t be worried.”  
  
“No, you really shouldn’t,” Remus says. His voice is getting hoarse. He swallows but it doesn’t help. “I miss you like hell.”  
  
“I’m right here.”  
  
_No._ “Yeah.”  
  
“You want to kiss me,” Sirius says, eyeing him. “You have that look.”  
  
“That look?”  
  
“ _Fuck me, Sirius_ ,” Sirius says and smiles, slowly, “ _that_ look.”  
  
“Oh, fucking –“  
  
“Come on. Come _on_ , Remus. Kiss me.”  
  
They kiss in the living room, then in the kitchen, then in Remus’ bedroom that’s still full of unpacked boxes. They kiss on the bed. He doesn’t say anything when Sirius starts unbuttoning his shirt, and not when Sirius opens his zipper, and not when Sirius’ fingers carefully push his pants down. And then Sirius stops.  
  
He kisses Sirius’ mouth. He’s going to cry afterwards, or during, of course he is, but Sirius is so _real_ , and it’s been _eight years._  
  
“Remus,” Sirius says against his mouth, “the scars.”  
  
“What?” he asks and kisses Sirius’ neck. _God_ , the scent of his skin.  
  
“On your thigh. On your left thigh.”  
  
He freezes.  
  
“What the fuck did you do?” Sirius asks in a low voice.  
  
“Nothing.”  
  
“ _Remus._ ”  
  
“You can see them just fine,” he says, closes his eyes and presses his nose against Sirius’ neck, so he doesn’t start remembering. The scars are old. He rarely remembers them. But of course the Sirius he remembers hasn’t seen them. “You know what I did.”  
  
“But why would you…”  
  
A steady row of straight white scars on his thigh, on his skin where everything else is made by scratching and biting.  
  
“Stop asking. _Please_ , I don’t want to talk about it. Just kiss me.”  
  
“You idiot,” Sirius says and kisses him.  
  
  
**  
  
  
It’s been three weeks and one day.  
  
He can’t believe there will be more.  
  
The rain falls on the tin roof.  
  
_Tap tap tap._  
  
In the dream he was lying right here, on the floor, and Sirius was with him. Then he woke up, and remembered.  
  
Alcohol doesn’t soften it enough.  
  
He can’t kill himself. Dad would be so disappointed.  
  
Not that he wants to die, because he doesn’t, not really. He just doesn’t want to live, either.  
  
There’ll be more days.  
  
It’s impossible to think that Christmas will come in a month and he’ll be here and life will be like this.  
  
There’re scissors in the cupboard.  
  
At first try, he can’t get them cut through the skin. But later he naps and wakes up and Sirius isn’t there. Sirius will never be there again.  
  
Sirius never loved him.  
  
How could he have been so stupid, so delusional, that he actually thought Sirius could love him?  
  
No one will ever love him.  
  
He can’t breathe.  
  
There’re scissor on the bathroom floor where he left them.  
  
They cut easily through his skin now. There’s just a bit of blood, and then there’s more. He leans against the wall and presses again. A tip of blood. Nothing else. Nothing else in his mind. Just the pain and the look of his own hands cutting his skin.  
  
A straight line.  
  
He inhales.  
  
  
**  
  
  
The sun is shining on his face. The window is open but it doesn’t help at all. It’s too hot in here to do anything. Annie’s been gone since last Tuesday, she’s camping with friends in Scotland, he’s kind of jealous but not really.  
  
He shifts and runs his fingers through Sirius’ hair. His own has grey strands in it. But then again, he’s 30 years old and Sirius is 21.  
  
“Remus,” Sirius says, running his fingers on Remus’ left thigh.  
  
“God, can’t you just let it go?”  
  
“You cut yourself.”  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
“Why?”  
  
“Because it made me feel better.”  
  
“I can’t imagine.”  
  
“Good.”  
  
Sirius shifts and leans in to kiss Remus’ thigh. “I love you.”  
  
“No, you didn’t.”  
  
“Want me to prove it?” Sirius asks, reaching for the waistline of Remus’ pants.  
  
“No. Stop. It’s too hot for that.”  
  
“You don’t even know what I’m going to do.”  
  
“Do you remember,” Remus says, taking a somewhat tighter grip on Sirius’ hair, because the weather is definitely too hot for a blowjob, “do you remember when we first kissed?”  
  
“Of course.”  
  
“It was a few days after you blew me in our living room.”  
  
Sirius laughs, his mouth pressed against Remus’ thigh.  
  
”At first you acted like you always do. Like nothing had changed. Like I hadn’t come in your fucking mouth. I was so angry. But I couldn’t say anything about it, I just couldn’t, because I thought you would laugh at me and say that it was just a nice thing you did for me. Like fixing my wounds.”  
  
“You’re an idiot.”  
  
“But then you came back from a mission for the Order and you were drunk already and something else, I don’t know, you had seen someone die or something. You looked so lost. You kept walking circles in the living room. And then when I couldn’t stand it anymore and grabbed your shoulder you just kissed me. On my mouth. Really kissed me.”  
  
“I was a good kisser.”  
  
“You were.”  
  
“I _am._ ”  
  
“Yeah.” He strokes Sirius’ hair slowly. He could fall asleep like that. Of course, when he woke up, Sirius would be gone. “And we had sex on your bed. Nice sex.”  
  
“You came the second I got inside you.”  
  
“Fuck you,” he says. “Why did you do it?”  
  
“What? You asked –“  
  
“Sirius, why did you do it?”  
  
Sirius stares at him, blinks and stares.  
  
“You aren’t really here,” he says. “You’re in Azkaban. And I don’t get it. I just don’t get why you did it.”  
  
“I’m not in Azkaban,” Sirius says.  
  
“You are. But I can’t imagine you there.” Only now that he does, Sirius’ hair in between his fingers becomes colder until he can’t feel it anymore. He can still see the confusion in Sirius’ eyes but if he tried to lean in to kiss Sirius, there would be nothing but air to kiss. And the real Sirius is in Azkaban. Sirius has probably forgotten him. Why the hell Sirius would cling into the memory of him? Sirius never loved him.  
  
He stares at the ceiling. He’s alone in the room.  
  
  
**  
  
  
The picture is on the front page of the Daily Prophet.  
  
He drops the cup of tea onto the floor and it breaks into pieces, but he can’t make himself put it back together. Not now. His hands are trembling, fucking _everything_ in him is trembling, and he stares and stares but the picture is still the same.  
  
It’s Sirius.  
  
When he finally reads the headline, he kind of already knows.  
  
That night, he conjures the image of Sirius for the first time in months. Sirius only stares at him when he grabs Sirius’ chin in between his fingers and holds tight. There’s something blank in Sirius’ eyes. Perhaps he can’t believe in it anymore. It’s been too long since he actually saw Sirius. The memories are fading even though they’re in the glass jars he keeps in the box under his desk.  
  
He fucks Sirius on the bed, silently because Annie’s in the living room with friends. The music comes under the door and through the walls and for a second the beat matches the rhythm of Remus’ breathing. He pushes Sirius’ shoulders against the mattress to get the angle right, because he’s almost there, almost there, and then he comes. Later, the sheets are sticky and his thighs are damp and there’s a dip in the mattress where Sirius was on his knees.  
  
He should probably stop this now.  
  
  
**  
  
  
He doesn’t stop it. After Dumbledore asks him to come to Hogwarts, they begin waiting together, he and Sirius who is still 21 and sometimes vague enough that Remus falls on the mattress when they try to fuck. Sometimes they just drink tea and talk about nothing. But he’s sure the real Sirius is coming for Harry. Not for him. Just Harry. Because Sirius never loved him. Sirius never cared about him enough to come to kill him now.  
  
He doesn’t have a clue what he’s going to do when Sirius finally comes. Maybe he’s going to kill Sirius himself.  
  
No, he’s not.  
  
Fuck, _no._  
  
He’s probably going to hit Sirius on the face, grab him by the shoulders and ask why the hell he said he loved Remus when he didn’t. Was it a joke? Was it to convince Remus not to doubt him? Was it to get laid?  
  
Of course, Sirius will know that Remus is still in love with him. He’ll see it in a second. It’s going to be apparent in the way Remus looks at him. But it can’t be helped.  
  
And it’s not like Remus has much to lose.  
  
But in the end it doesn’t go exactly like that.  
  
  
**  
  
  
The last time he sees Sirius is the day before James and Lily die. He’s already asleep when Sirius comes to the flat, clearly trying to be quiet so that not to wake him up. He rolls onto his back and stares at the shadows on the ceiling. Yesterday, they fucked in the bathroom and he can’t remember saying a single word. He should talk to Sirius. He really should. He just doesn’t know the words to fix what’s broken.  
  
He listens to the sounds of Sirius brushing his teeth. For a moment he thinks Sirius is going to sleep on the sofa and it feels like something cold is poured into him. But then Sirius walks to the bedroom door with almost silent steps, opens the door and comes in. The mattress shifts.  
  
“Hi.”  
  
“Did I wake you up? Fuck.”  
  
“Are you okay?”  
  
“Yeah,” Sirius says. He smells of cigarettes and sweat. It’s good. “Are you?”  
  
“Yeah. I didn’t go anywhere today.”  
  
“Good.” Sirius is quiet for a while. “Do you want to go out tomorrow? Like, for a walk?”  
  
“Yeah. Of course.”  
  
“If nothing comes up.”  
  
“If nothing comes up,” Remus says, and then he listens to the sound of Sirius’ breaths until both of them fall asleep.


End file.
